Performers will virtually kill to get noticed at the Edinburgh Fringe. Shot in the city itself, Annie Griffin's film satirises the lot of them with a cast and script good enough to keep the farce in check.
As a veteran festival commentator, I recognised almost every character: the selfish, womanising star comedian (Stephen Mangan), his long-suffering and possibly lovelorn PA (Raquel Cassidy), the randy Scots radio reporter (Daniela Nardini), the naive actress doing a one-woman show about Wordsworth (Lyndsey Marshal), and the comedian who has never quite made it (Chris O'Dowd).
They may be stereotypes, but it never quite seems that way. Cassidy, in particular, gives a performance that's brilliantly apt. As for the inevitable sex, it seems curious that we should have to witness a shot of the star comedian's erect penis and a distasteful homosexual scene, both of which make an 18 certificate inevitable.
It deserves the compliment of a wider audience than that just for the best of its lines: "The fishermen are coming home. Their boats are full of tuna," (a dreadful Canadian piece of performance art) and "William. The daffodils! See how they bend in the wind" (the Wordsworth playlet).
It's a lively and intelligent comedy, about comedy, which expertly summons up the messy clamour of Edinburgh during the festival.
